Yaariyan

Director Mrs. Divya Khosla Kumar work is full of confusion. She has stuffed every possible formula of a hit in this movie, like suspense, fight, romance, love triangle, patriotism , bike race even bicycle race, mount climbing, long lip lock, exposing body and lots of others stupid stuffs but she had drastically failed to make them convincing or even at the level to make it understandable. There is no story, very weak and confusing screenplay, not a single memorable dialogue. If an Australian purchases half of college land then why should he give the stupid music, chase, race and other lots of competition, and that is also in different rounds? Only because director wanted to stuff that type of scenes!!? Main male lead knows everything mount climbing, bicycle stunt, does stupid stunts like an idiot Spiderman. He prefers to slide down keeping his head down on a very dangerous wall rather than climbing or coming down keeping his legs down. He does not know such type of basic things but he can do unbelievable things. Hero team knows that the person being projected as a college student from opposition, to compete in climax is not a student but a professional stunt performer but rather then challenging his credential they prefer to compete. Performance wise most of the actors are below average mark. Music is very repetitive too.

YAARIYAN is a coming-of-age film directed by Divya Khosla Kumar, starring Himansh Kohli and Rakul Preet Singh in the lead roles. The rest of the star cast includes Serah Singh, Dev Sharma, Evelyn Sharma, Deepti Naval and Gulshan Grover.

The film revolves around "college life" and how a group of 5 Indian college-goers must battle against Australia in a range of activities to save their college while undergoing life-altering situations.

I'll just get straight to it: this film is just plain awful. Now I know that my summary of the review above is extremely harsh, I apologize, but its nothing but the truth, and believe me, if you're still reading, there's gonna be a lot more of it.

Now, first thing's first: the promos and hype. That's all great, I mean, they used the music and the fact that its 'from the makers of Aashiqui 2' to distract you from the ACTUAL story, in fact, the trailer itself doesn't even give you a real insight to what you're getting into. Normally, that's a good thing... but for a film so bad, its a downright con, and its totally like having a guy's pocket money stolen.

If you skipped on reading the story synopsis and if you're planning to watch the movie, I STRONGLY suggest you read it IMMEDIATELY. It makes NO SENSE WHATSOEVER, in fact, it looks like a cheap rip off of Student of the Year (which wasn't that good either) but in comparison to Yaariyan, the former looks like we're comparing the latter with 3 Idiots. There's no better way to put it; its obnoxious and I don't know what the staff of the film saw in the script. I don't even understand what it has to do with college life. In the case of SOTY, we understand that the competition takes place every year, so it's completely justified... but in the case of Yaariyan, it isn't like we have the name of the film talking about a competition, its about friendship, and I'm sorry to say that the film failed in portraying that as well.

The acting was just alright; most of the stars were new-comers, therefore mostly immature. The only good ones were those who have been in Bollywood for years; Gulshan Grover, who had less screenplay, and Deepti Naval, who was my favorite of the two; she portrayed her emotions and character with such accuracy (which everyone else failed to do) that you actually wished the story could be better to support her acting. Himansh Kohli had potential, and you could see he had the charisma, being he's like I said earlier: immaturity was at its finest in all the youngsters (including him).

AND I shall leave the only best thing (and saving grace) of the film for last: THE MUSIC. BRAVO TO ALL THE MUSIC DIRECTORS. The music was so good that it was the ONLY reason I was sitting in the cinema till the end. I haven't heard a better album since Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani, and the film delivers such great hits like "ABCD", "Sunny Sunny", "Baarish", "Allah Waariyan"... even the not so popular ones were great, especially "Love Me Thoda Aur". By the end of the film, I sat wondering whether the film was just directed for the songs, and a cheap plot was added just to have a background to the songs. Whatever it was, it worked to an extent because when I left the cinema I felt that my ticket money was justified only because the music kept me hooked. Its a shame though, that such a song like "Sunny Sunny" that gained global recognition belongs to such a poor film.

In conclusion, I'd tell you to watch YAARIYAN only if you were only interested in the music. If you can't wait to watch the way the movie blended with the music, I'd suggest you watch it in a single screen, because it's not worth the full price. And if I could lead you with one last message, it's that YAARIYAN is not completely rubbish, because I'd rather enter the cinema and watch the music and some of the extremely ridiculous situations it has rather than sitting and staring at a wall for 2 hours.

YAARIYAN- 2/10

Sometimes I wonder whether Bollywood prepares any script before directing any film. Spending so much on location, songs and dance would not give inception of a good film unless script is thoroughly worked upon.

Yaariyan tells the story of 5 friends who has been assigned task by their principal to compete with Australian team to save their college from being sold off by a powerful business man.

First time director Divya Khosla Kumar does not do justice to the area of direction. As the movie begins, you are greeted by glossy and candy floss environment of college( reminds of Kuch Kuch Hota Hai ) with unnecessary insertion of songs. The main drama unfolds in the later reel which again is intolerable with screenplay written by a school kid. Art direction and Cinematography is excellent especially the ones shot in Australia. Songs are tuneful. Dialogues are less-impacting. Performances are over-top. Aditya Raj Kapoor does not have conventional hero looks nor has given good performance.

Overall, a pathetic film in every sense. Poor- 1/5

I spent a total of 30 bucks, (INR) and still I regret it.the only silver lining was to see Himansh Kohli, who is a patient of Cerebral Palsy but was able to perform almost normally. The White actors or whatever they were in movie were picked from Paharganj in Delhi for 10 bucks an hour, so you don't expect much. The movie was never shot in Australia and they used low resolution stock footages to show glimpses of Australia.The lead actress suffers from Creepomania and she has the creepiest eyes I have ever seen. The Director was half busy feeding her child, hence the story line goes everywhere but runs out of Logic. Thankfully I was very tired that day and I don't remember watching second half. Although when my friends woke me up after credits finished they were swearing about who's idea it was to watch Yaariyan.

Though the heading of the review says it all, still I would like to share few interesting points about this latest young film made on the lines of some recent successes particularly targeting the (college going) youth & the multiplex audience.

Taking on the bright points first, it's the debut film of Divya Khosla Kumar (wife of Bhushan Kumar, the young mastermind behind T-Series), who had earlier acted in a big budget film AB TUMHARE HAWALE WATAN SATHIYO (2004) and then also directed few major music videos before taking on to film direction. So looking at the background, she could have easily gone for a safe film featuring a known sellable star without making any big effort. But the fact that she bravely decided to make a project with a completely fresh cast, spending all that time to train them before coming on to the screen, surely deserves some praises in these cunning commercial times, mostly concerned with the initials and the first weekend earnings. So all the youngsters featuring in it must have had a good time shooting with a lot of fun as it seems, but I only wish the team had also worked on its script too with the same devotion and spirit.

Now as backed up by one of top names in the entertainment industry, YAARIAN has a mega budget, a bigger canvas, an eye-catching competitive cinematography and a Hit musical score to do the trick. But unfortunately it relies too much on its catchy music and other technical aspects only and doesn't care about the most important part of a film i.e. its content or the script. As a result we have a pretty childish mix & match product taking its clear inspirations from earlier hits in this genre like JO JEETA WOHI SIKANDER made way back in 1992, the repeatedly adapted UGLY BETTY T.V. serial concept (2006) and STUDENT OF THE YEAR released just a few years back in 2012.

The film begins on a very routine note and then goes on to offer many seen before, mediocre and even bizarre sequences which should have been deleted right from its first draft only by the debutant director. For instance, here we have a foreign investor who wishes to buy a major part of the school and turn it into a Casino, as if it was being opened like an amusement park for the students. To decide whether the Casino can be made or not a competition is organized between the students in Australia & India, bringing in the 'Nationality Card' as a completely weird thought put in by the writers. Further the absurdity reaches its height when in order to win the competition the foreign investor calls in a complete professional sports person to compete with the Indian student contestant, and the Indian School team calmly accepts that like a group of morons having no objection of any sort.

However what disturbed me the most was that despite being a film made by a woman director, it has all the girls and ladies used in it like the objects of lust, a lonely mother is handed over the ashes of his only son just like that, there is a highly insulting scene disgracing our own concept of 'Bharat Mata' and then we also have a totally insane smooch between the lead pair which clearly looks like 'Eating' and not 'Kissing' from any angle.

The film desperately tries to impress you with its well shot cycling and rock climbing scenes coming towards the end, but by then the damage has already been done and the viewer is simply interested in getting away with it as soon as possible. On the acting front, all the young performers become the innocent victim of some extremely poor writing which actually doesn't let them leave any kind of impression on the end user. Plus the director wastes both Gulshan Grover and Deepti Naval in their small roles and they don't have much to contribute in the film as per their known caliber. Yes, Divya Khosla Kumar shows some good sparks in the competition sequences of the second half executed well, but in order to make a good film she has to understand the importance of a good script and content before taking on her next project.

In all, YAARIAN does have some good musical tracks to bring in the initial crowd but as a film its simply like a poor amateur version of Karan Johar's STUDENT OF THE YEAR, which in fact makes SOTY look like a World Classic in comparison.